


Missing the Signs

by fabrega



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, M/M, Movie Spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:19:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1441522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve does not ask him to come along, and Sam does not let Steve leave him behind.</p>
<p>Spoilers for The Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing the Signs

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Cap2. SPOILERS.
> 
> Thanks to my first-readers, Alex and Sara.

Sam's with Hill, Fury, and Natasha when they get word: Steve's body's been found, barely breathing, on the edge of the Potomac. The agent's voice crackles across the radio Hill isn't supposed to have, _he's in pretty bad shape_ , which is better than the initial report, _we've found one body,_ but certainly not what they've been hoping for. They all continue to listen as Captain America is retrieved by the rescue team and taken by helicopter to closest hospital, and finally, finally Hill nods at Sam, it's okay to go now. The next part kind of blurs together--

\--a ride in Natasha's car to the hospital, no talking, no radio--

\--an argument with the woman at the front desk, the one Natasha just waltzes past, about who he's here to see and what right he has to be here; he wants to shout at her _did you see the smoldering wreckage in the Potomac? I did that, I did that with the man you won't let me see_ \--

\--blistering words for Natasha when she returns to retrieve him from the lobby, her face calm as she lets his anger bypass her, it's not really her that he's mad at--

\--the room she brings him to, no light except for what comes in through one lit-up window, and there's Steve on the table, looking impossibly small among the doctors and nurses and machinery, and all the breath goes out of Sam at once--

\--the men with guns who escort him back to the lobby, completely without malice; he guesses the lady at the front desk had been right all along--

\--the shitty cafeteria coffee he drinks and the crappy chair he can't keep still in--

\--and the footsteps as the doctor approaches and asks, "Mr. Wilson?"

Sam nods and straightens in his chair. The doctor tells him that the surgery is over, that Steve will pull through, and that Agent Romanov thought he ought to know.

"Can I see him?" Sam asks.

He's led to a small, quiet room where Steve is sleeping. Sam stands in the doorway and stares, half-listening as the nurse who'd escorted him across the hospital explains about how Steve heals, what they can expect over the next few days, and when they think he might wake up. The other half of his brain is shouting _Sam Wilson, you're a goddamned idiot._

He plants himself in the chair next to the bed. He stays.

He knows he should sleep--it feels like it's been about fifteen years since he had any sleep--but he can't shut off his brain, can't stop looking at Steve's face, can't believe he'd missed the signs (it's his goddamned _job_ , how had he missed the _signs_ ). Guy has a shield made of super-metal and fists like a freight train and his face ends up looking like that? Guy isn't fighting back.

He'd talked to guys like that at work, guys who started bar fights and just didn't bother finishing them, guys who threw themselves recklessly into the most dangerous jobs and hobbies they could find, guys who might not really feel like living anymore but wouldn't, couldn't, didn't want to--

He'd asked Captain America what made him happy, and Captain America had not had an answer.

He stays.

He is there when Steve's shield is pulled from the river, far from where they'd found him. He is there when Natasha shows up to the hospital with it. She remands it into his care. She also brings emergency overnight bags, one for him and one for Steve; his is actually the one from his closet, and Sam is too thankful to care that she must have busted into his house to get it.

He is there when President Ellis arrives. Steve isn't yet awake and Sam hasn't been home in days, so he's glad when the President stays in the hallway, just peers through the window at Captain America. Sam keeps his nose firmly in his book, pointedly ignoring the situation, although chuckles to himself as the President has one photo taken, Steve obviously visible through the window over the President's shoulder, just in case.

He is there as the doctors and nurses rotate in and out, switching IVs, changing bandages, being generally reverential. He learns their names, jokes with them, thanks them for their time and care.

He is there when Steve wakes up.

He is there while Steve recovers. He watches as the injuries that would take ages for anyone else to recover from heal in a matter of days, as the cuts and bruises fade away and leave no trace. He and Steve do laps of the hospital floor together, Steve leaning heavily on his IV stand. Sam smuggles in cartons of crappy Chinese takeout; it's miles better than the hospital food, and Steve basically inhales it. He keeps catching Steve looking at him, and he continues to read his book.

He is there when Steve is released, although by that point he's been home once or twice too, taking a real shower, eating real food, going for a run. He brings his car back, and Steve climbs into the front seat without help and without asking.

"Where to?" Sam says.

Steve looks down at his hands in his lap and says, "There's someone I need to see. Will... will you come with me?"

He doesn't tell Sam any more than that, so when the front door opens and they're led into a sitting room, Sam has no idea who or wait is waiting for them there.

( _She isn't having a good day,_ the woman who'd answered the door had said to them in the entryway, _are you sure you want to_ and Steve had nodded stoically and forged ahead: _I need her to know that I'm okay_.)

Inside, a woman, an old woman--as old as Steve, Sam realizes--is sleeping. Steve manages to maneuver two chairs for them to the bedside before she wakes up. For a moment, there is no recognition on her face, and then she is crying, a look of joy on her face, repeating to Steve: "You're alive!"

Steve smiles at her, says her name, _Peggy_ , and grips Sam's hand tight in the shared space between their chairs.

Outside, Steve takes a moment to steady himself. Sam says nothing, figures that when Steve wants to talk about it, he will.

Several long minutes pass before Steve speaks. "I don't visit often enough," he says. He stares off into the distance. "She's there about half the time, and the other half..." He trails off, not taking his eyes from the horizon, his jaw shifting with the words he's not saying. Sam can't imagine how draining it would have been to do this once, let alone more than once, let alone over and over again, by choice.

He remembers now talking to Steve about the Winter Soldier, in the hospital in the middle of the night. _He's in there somewhere,_ Steve had said, _he has to be_ , and now Sam gets another part of why that's so important.

"You carrying this stuff by yourself?" Sam asks quietly.

Steve shakes his head at the sky, turns back to Sam before answering. "Who else could?"

"Friends, dude, that's what friends are for." Sam means for it to sound kind, a little bit teasing, but Steve's expression crumples for a second and he remembers the bruises on Steve's face and he knows, oh shit, he's said the very wrongest thing.

Steve's face shifts quickly, though, and he grins an almost-believable grin at Sam. "Is that what you are? A friend?"

Sam swallows, nods, tries not to think about Steve's hand clenching into his.

+

They stop at Fury's grave, receive a file from Natasha, and start out on the road. Steve does not ask him to come along, and Sam does not let Steve leave him behind.

+

They spend a lot of time in transit, a lot of time planning and waiting, a lot of time not finding anything. They ride in cars, and Steve learns songs to sing along to. They jog through strange cities together, and Steve keeps pace with Sam, not lapping him at all, refusing to leave him to navigate his way alone. They sit in diners and cafes and coffee shops, and Steve tells stories to fill the time, stories about the people he'd known, stories about the people he carries with him: Howard Stark, the Howling Commandos, Peggy Carter, Bucky Barnes. Sam likes hearing about them, and Steve seems to enjoy the stories being told. Sam tells stories about Reilly, his unit, his parents, his sister, and Steve laughs at all the right places.

They share beds in tiny hotel rooms in Denmark, Georgia, Ukraine, Thailand. Every morning, Steve apologizes for taking the covers; every night, Sam lies quiet and still and does not fight with the sleeping super-soldier for the covers. He listens to Steve breathing, thinks about dying, thinks about how awful it is to fall to your death. One night in Estonia somewhere, Sam starts awake from a nightmare and can't hear Steve's breathing over the hum of the hotel air conditioner and he starts to panic. He knows it's irrational, but he touches his hand gingerly to Steve's back to feel the rise and fall of his inhale/exhale, just to make sure. He wakes up there, and Steve says nothing.

+

At an unmarked drop location in Romania, Steve steps up to a hidden retinal scanner in a back alley and is rewarded with a large package wrapped in plain brown paper. He hands it to Sam; the heft of it is familiar to him even before the paper comes off, and Steve beams as Sam unwraps a brand new set of wings.

Sam doesn't ask where they came from. He knows Steve must have called in half a dozen favors to get these, here, for him.

That night, he unfurls the new wings in their hotel room and almost clips Steve in the face. The wings are newer, fancier, a little bit wider, and undoubtedly full of patented Stark Industries improvements, which will take some getting used to. They're also _actually his_ , not something he's borrowing from the military, and they're just about the most beautiful things he's ever seen.

He looks up and sees Steve watching him and smiling. He smiles back, and thinks about flying, and tries not to think about falling.

+

Steve thinks he spots the Winter Soldier in a crowd in Istanbul. They stay there for a week.

+

In France, Steve stops outside the door of a bar and swears, _swears_ he remembers the place that used to be here, swears he'd drank there with soldiers, many years ago. Sam drags him inside, because it's not the same, of course it's not, but it's something. Steve resists, but only a little, explaining that he can't get drunk, that his body heals too fast for the alcohol to have any effect. Sam grins and ends up ordering them both about ten fruity mixed drinks each over the course of the evening, reasoning that if Steve can't get drunk, at least they should drink something that tastes good. Besides, Sam can barely taste the alcohol in these things himself--and then, somehow, it's the morning. He vaguely remembers Steve walking with him back to the hotel, vaguely remembers telling Steve something very important that he can't remember now. Steve returns to the hotel with coffee, which Sam gratefully drinks, and does not mention the night before.

+

They are ambushed in a warehouse in Kuwait by local thugs who don't take kindly to strangers. The gunfire comes out of nowhere and Steve raises his shield and shoves Sam out of harm's way before ducking for cover himself. Sam's heart stutters and then they are huddled together behind a stack of crates, both still alive, for now. A shot rings out across the space and one of the thugs who've got them surrounded drops to the floor; Steve looks at Sam, who shakes his head and holds up his unfired handgun. Another shot, and another, from a sniper rifle in the far rafters, two more dead thugs, and Sam looks down at where Steve is suddenly gripping his hand.

They escape the warehouse and have no leads for three solid months.

+

Sam starts to think this might be a very bad idea, chasing a ninja assassin ghost-from-your-past who only recently tried to murder you to death. Half the time, he wonders if they're following or being followed. He hopes he is imagining the glimpses of a half-familiar face he keeps catching in crowds.

He is not sure what Steve is going to do if they find his friend. He's not sure Steve knows either.

He thinks about bruises, and about being a man with no mission.

+

Sam wakes up sweating in a hotel in Kazakhstan. Steve is sitting on the double bed opposite, obviously roused from sleep, a worried look on his face. "Bad dreams?" he says.

Sam nods, unsure he trusts himself to say anything more. As they exhaust leads, run out of facts, and chase more dead ends, he finds himself worrying more and more about Steve, about what he'll do when this is over, about what will be left for him then. Despite everything, he has nightmares about Steve almost every night, about being the one to find him by the river, about the air that won't go into his lungs, about there being nothing for Captain America to live for.

"Want to talk about it?" Steve says, smiling a little as he rubs the sleep from his eyes; this is usually Sam's job.

Sam shakes his head.

"You know, somebody once told me you don't have to carry this stuff by yourself," Steve says, coming over to sit on Sam's bed.

"Sounds like a smart guy," Sam says, unable to help himself. He focuses on his own breathing, focuses on Steve's breathing, focuses on not doing anything stupid--and then Steve's hand is on his face. He's not sure if Steve says anything else, because the only words he can make out are from his own brain, shouting gleefully at him, _Sam Wilson, you're a goddamned idiot_ , as Captain America leans forward and kisses him.

Steve looks a little worried when Sam pulls away. "Was that--" he starts to ask, but Sam just laughs and pulls him close again, unafraid of falling.


End file.
